Watchers by Dean Koontz

I have read this book at least 10 times, and I still love it! I read it again because I was procrastinating finishing The Mill on the Floss and wanted a quick read. This is a great story about two escaped lab projects. One, a golden retriever with the intelligence of a human and one a hideous, intelligent monstrosity, called The Outsider, designed to be a killer. The dog ends up with Travis, a disillusioned and depressed veteran and brings him together with Nora, a beautiful, albeit timid, woman who was raised to be a spinster. The dog changes their lives and becomes part of their family, but The Outsider has a compulsive need to track and kill the dog who was the "favored son" of the Francis Project that produced them both. Then there's always the looney out of left field that seems a recurring element in Koontz's novels. A man named Vince who is a contract killer believes he absorbs the lives of those he kills. He also believes he will someday achieve immortality and that owning the dog is part of his destiny. So we have the NSA, The Outsider, and Crazy Vince after the dog, Einstein, and Travis and Nora trying to keep the dog safe and free. Exciting read, and only a little funny for having been written in the late '80s.